By Staff
ReporterZIMBABWEAN
police on Monday arrested a controversial church leader accused of raping
his maid on five occasions following intense pressure from at least
THIRTY FIVE women's organisations which threatened to stage a series
of demonstrations against the police for failing to act on the complaints.

Obadiah Msindo,
36, the founder and leader of the Destiny for Africa Network was behind
bars after being seized early Monday. He was immediately taken to court
and had the charges laid against him before a magistrate remanded him
in custody to April 20.

Msindo recently
donated $130 million towards President Robert Mugabe's 82nd birthday
celebrations and has presided over several State occasions at the Heroes
Acre.

He is also known
to have offered prayers for Mugabe and denounced Zimbabwe's main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

We revealed recently
how Zimbabwe's police commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, had unsuccessfully
tried to block Msindo’s arrest, but the Director of Public Prosecutions,
Loice Matanda Moyo, had ordered his prosecution after pressure by women’s
groups.

Msindo's dramatic
arrest follows a petition by the Women’s Coalition, the umbrella
organisation for all women and children’s organisations, calling
on the police to act against Msindo.

The women said in
a statement Sunday: "The Women’s Coalition is shocked that
after the Attorney General declared that Obadiah Msindo has a case to
answer, he has not been arrested. Failure to arrest Msindo to answer
to the charges of rape will leave us no choice but to march in protest.
We deserve protection and justice against gender-based violence as citizens
of this country."

Teddy Kamuriwo,
prosecuting, told a Harare magistrate that the alleged rape took place
in Msindo's flat in Harare in July 2004 after the woman had been introduced
to him by one Diva Pick, whom she had met at the Employment Bureau.

The first rape is
alleged to have occurred on July 5, 2004 -- the same day Msindo met
the 22-year-old woman.

After taking her
to his home, having agreed to employ her as his maid, Msindo is alleged
to have slipped into her blankets during the night and raped her once
while his two children lay in a spare bedroom.

The next morning,
the court heard, Msindo found the woman cleaning the house and grabbed
her by the waist and led her to his bedroom where she was raped again.

Prosecutors say
a knock was heard on Msindo's door, and while he was attending to the
visitor at the door, the maid had tried to lock herself in a spare bedroom
but Msindo returned in time, then pulled her onto the bed, and raped
her for the third time.

Later in the night,
Msindo is said to have lifted the maid while she slept onto his bed,
and raped her again. Two days after the first rape allegedly occurred,
Msindo is said to have raped her the fifth time after waking up in the
night wrapped in a green towel. He again lifted her onto his bed and
raped her, it is alleged.

Msindo is not the
only vocal ecclesiastical supporter of President Robert Mugabe's regimen
disgraced by criminal conduct.

One of Mugabe's
most visible ecclesiastical sympathisers, pastor Lawrence Katsiru of
the apostolic sect, who notoriously commanded his followers to Zanu
PF gatherings, is serving seven years in jail for raping a 13 year old
girl.

Katsiru took the
minor for “counseling” at his farm after her parents had
complained about her bad behavior after he indicated that he wanted
to take the girl to Marondera “to spiritually discipline her”.
He raped her once on the way.